Flashback to your childhood and all the events that happened that molded you and made you who you are today. Many people have different memories that they recall as important throughout their childhoods. The author of the visual essay, “Journey through childhood”, takes readers through her childhood and shows them her important events that molded her to the way she is. The author shows readers the importance of education through her use of repeating images, the colors in the photos, and the layout of the images throughout the essay. 

Throughout the visual essay, readers are able to feel how important education is in childhood due to the repetition of pictures that have to do with school. Four of the six photos show the girl in some type of education area. The first photo of the essay may be the most important one as it shows the first day of school. The essay starts off with the first day of school so the reader gets the immediate feeling that school is an important factor in the author’s life. Just like the reader may remember the first day of school, they can tell that the girl is nervous for the first day based on her body language. Readers can see the nervousness because the girl has her hands clinched down by her sides and she is gripping onto her shorts in a tightly. The young girls smile also looks like it is forced which helps to create the understanding that she is nervous. In the fourth image readers are shown the girl in school again as they see her in her first year of high school. The girl looks more comfortable about school in this picture. She is shown with another girl that could be seen as her friend and the two of them are holding awards. The girl is most likely less nervous about school by this age and winning an award shows that she is involved in her school and achieving goals. The girl is once again smiling in this picture and this time it does not look as forced as it did in the picture that showed the first day of school. The final 2 pictures of the essay show the girl at her high school graduation and picking her college. In both the pictures, the girl looks extremely happy as she has a large grin on her face. In the picture that shows the girl at her graduation, readers see that see is standing up tall which they can then realize that the girl is proud of her accomplishment of graduating high school. The author choosing to put four pictures related to school into her essay shows the readers that education was an important part of her childhood and helps put an emphasis on how important education is throughout everyone’s childhood.  

Colors are usually not something readers pay close attention to, but the colors that are used throughout this visual essay help the reader feel the mood of the memories. There are many bright colors and none of them are black and white. Due to the multiple colors, readers are able to feel that all the memories are happy memories. The best example of the colors helping set the mood is in the fifth picture which is of the girl’s high school graduation. In the background, we can see a bright blue sky which helps to show that it was a nice day outside. It gives the reader the feeling of not only it being a nice day regarding the weather but also with the event going on. Readers also see rays of sunlight beaming down onto the girl and her friends face which they can interpret as a spotlight being on them for their accomplishment of graduating high school. The quality of each image also has an impact on the mood the readers feel. The pictures are clear and readers can clearly see what is happening. If the pictures were not clear, readers could feel like the events were not as important since the girl wouldn’t have a clear memory of them. Overall, every image has multiple colors which play a key role in setting the authors mood throughout the entire visual essay.  

The layout of all the images in a visual essay can play a large part on a readers understanding of the photos. In “Journey through childhood” there are two photos on each page with space between the two of them for a caption. Having only two photos per page it makes it so that the photos aren’t cluttered. When they aren’t cluttered readers are able to focus on each pictures details and interpret their meaning. The photos were also placed on a white background which plays a role in the focus of the images. When placed on a white background we are able to focus on the details and the colors of each image versus being distracted by the color that is behind the picture. When a reader sees that the visuals are placed on a white background, they can focus all their attention onto the photos which puts more emphasis on the importance of each photo and its details. The author is also using personal images versus another form which helps a reader to feel like the visual essay is more personal. If the author used images from clip art or other sources it would not be as personal and therefore the reader may not take as strong of an interpretation as they can get with the personal images. The layout of the photos and them being placed on the white background help to guide the reader in their understanding of the photos.

Visuals can be just as powerful as words when trying to convey a message to a group of readers. The theme of visual text can be determined through visual features that can be found throughout a visual essay. Readers are able to interpret the theme of the visual essay, “Journey through childhood”, by looking at the visual features the author used. Her use of repetiting images helps to show the emphasize she has about education throughout childhood. Her use of color and the layout of the images also plays a role in the readers being able to analysis her photos and see how important education was throughout her childhood. 
